Play It Again, Sam (1972)

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General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1972
Running Time	82:07
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Herbert Ross
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Woody Allen Diane Keaton
Case	?
RPI	$24.95	Music	Billy Goldenberg

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English German Spanish French Italian Danish Dutch Norwegian Swedish Turkish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Think of classic Woody Allen and films like Annie Hall and Manhattan immediately spring to mind, not to mention Diane Keaton. Well, this is an early Woody Allen film (in fact, the first featuring Diane) but it does not seem to be as famous as the other two.

    Maybe the problem is that it is set in San Francisco rather than New York City. I don't know about you, but I find it very hard to imagine Woody as a Californian, let alone living in San Francisco. But don't worry, apart from a few gratuitous shots of rolling hills, streetcars and the bay, this story might as well be set in New York.

    Allan (Woody Allen) is a man who is obsessed with Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca - so obsessed that he regularly imagines Humphrey (Jerry Lacy) talking to him and giving him advice on his life and relationships. Speaking of relationships, his wife Nancy (Susan Anspach) has recently left him, so he is feeling very depressed.

    His best friends Dick (Tony Roberts) and Linda (Diane Keaton) tries to match make him with various girls, with hilariously disastrous results. Allan and Linda end up falling in love with each other, creating a love triangle that Humphrey has to end up helping to resolve.

    This is an interesting film in that it reminds me strongly of Annie Hall and yet contains the slapstick common to early Woody Allen movies. I like the fact that Dick has this compulsion to update his office with the nearest phone number he can be contacted on no matter where he is. Allan's spastic clumsiness is painful to watch, but his neuroticism and hypochondria is familiar Woody Allen territory.

Video

    The transfer is presented in widescreen 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, based on a 35mm print (presumably with an intended viewing aspect ratio of 1.85:1).

    The transfer is somewhat soft, dark and grainy. Colours appear to be somewhat subdued and faded, though contrast and black levels are quite good.

    I did not notice any film marks, nor any significant instances of compression artefacts.

    There are a number of subtitle tracks on the disc. Curiously the subtitle menu mentions both English and English for the Hearing Impaired, but I can only find an English subtitle track using PowerDVD. The accuracy of the English subtitle track is about average. I did not notice any dialogue attribution, nor significant transcription of non-dialogue foley effects.

    This is a single sided single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are a number of audio tracks on the disc: English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192kb/s), German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192kb/s), Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192kb/s), French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192kb/s), Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192kb/s). I listened to the English audio track.

    The audio track is listenable, though lacking in extreme high or low frequencies, and sounded very very mono apart from background music.

    I did not have any difficulty understanding the dialogue, and did not notice any audio synchronization issues.

    The background music is very reminiscent of "golden oldies" films and include snippets of songs such as As Time Goes By.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are no extras included on this disc.

Menu

    The menu is static but 16x9 enhanced.

    The Region 1 and 4 versions of this title appear to be similar (no extras), apart from NTSC vs PAL formatting, and the presence of additional foreign language audio and subtitle tracks.

    Play It Again, Sam is an early Woody Allen film and is the first one of his films featuring Diane Keaton.

    The video transfer is mediocre.

    The audio transfer is mediocre.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall